Meeting your heroes can be a dangerous thing. Either they are a total disappointment or they are so completely uninterested in your admiration for them that you leave their company feeling totally dejected.
When I first interviewed Patrick Lichfield, for Photo Answers magazine back in the late 1990s, I approached his Notting Hill studio with mild trepidation. Here was a man more used to hob nobbing with the Queen than eating Hob Nobs with a humble features ed.
But Lichfield made me very welcome, putting me at ease instantly and spending most of the morning showing me around his studio, cackling about the state of the darkroom he had just emerged from an hour earlier stinking of fix.

Five years later I went back to interview him again, this time for Photography Monthly. He greeted me in the same friendly manner and this time rather than stinking of Hypam and thrusting a dripping wet contact sheet into my hand, he rushed me upstairs to a pristine Apple Mac G4 laptop and proceeded to enthuse about the digital revolution. Photographers will soon be mere camera operators, he warned me on that day. We are living in a golden age of photography at the moment, he continued, and Im jolly glad to still be doing what I love in this new digital age. The future is very exciting.

Lichfield never stopped working. He died as he lived, enjoying life and the people around him. His passing adds another cloud to photographys sky.

One of the true greats in photography, my family has admirred his work for many decades and his passing is very sad news. I expect that we will be seeing a lot more of his great work over the next fews weeks,which will give us all inspiration in our photographic efforts.

One of the true greats in photography, my family has admirred his work for many decades and his passing is very sad news. I expect that we will be seeing a lot more of his great work over the next fews weeks,which will give us all inspiration in our photographic efforts.

Like David I did have the pleasure of meeting Lord Lichfield and he was very good at making you feel like you were an old friend.
I'll always treasure those couple of days spent at Shugborough and the memories of a true gent.
Being shown around a stately home by the occupant is something the NT and like can never fully capture. The candid stories of past generations less than gracious departures and slightly dubious gambling habits take on a life of their own.
A very nice genuine person that I for one will sadly miss.

Like David I did have the pleasure of meeting Lord Lichfield and he was very good at making you feel like you were an old friend.

I'll always treasure those couple of days spent at Shugborough and the memories of a true gent.

Being shown around a stately home by the occupant is something the NT and like can never fully capture. The candid stories of past generations less than gracious departures and slightly dubious gambling habits take on a life of their own.